


The Benefit of Friends

by CoffeeFairy



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Bad Pick-Up Lines, Blow Jobs, Dorks in Love, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, I apologise for the bad flirting, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Light dom/sub undertones, M/M, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Shiro (Voltron), Praise Kink, Resolved Sexual Tension, Shiro Calls Keith Baby, Smut, Thirsty Keith, WEAR A HELMET, blink and you miss it mattor, everyone works for a games company AU, super thirsty keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-02 05:28:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16298978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeFairy/pseuds/CoffeeFairy
Summary: Keith doesn't have a problem. He's teaching his oblivious, super-hot best friend who he's in love with how to pick up other guys, but he doesn't have a problem.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I'm back because I just had way too much fun writing for this ship to stop. This is really stupid and so long for what it is but these dorks just kept being too dorky to get together. Don't worry, happy ending ahead! First of two chapters because the word count ran away with me. Rating for later chapter and some language.

Keith didn’t have a problem. He’d dropped a twenty pound weight a quarter of an inch from his foot, he’d slipped off a treadmill going ten miles an hour and he’d accidentally slapped himself in the face with a rope but he didn’t have a problem. No, going to the gym with Shiro was still a great idea. That he kept injuring himself in his distraction when Shiro did pretty much anything gym related was a minor inconvenience compared to the reward. Currently it was to watch him lift free weights that made his biceps coil into hard bulges, like buns rising in an oven, and it was making all sorts of pulling, slippery sensations tug in Keith’s lower abdomen. 

The man already looked like some kind of marble statue, a homage to perfection lovingly rendered, but at the gym? He was a walking, talking, rippling, glistening, undulating wet dream. Dressed in cut off sweats and a tank, he should look douchey at best, or like an 80’s tribute at worst. He looked neither, but managed to turn the atrocity into a loving, well-worn ensemble that enhanced everything he worked hard to maintain. From the looks he was getting, half the men in the gym were going home to cut off their own sweatpants. The other half were going home and getting their hands into their sweatpants, Shiro at the forefront of their minds. 

Despite Keith detesting them for it, he couldn’t deny he’d be joining them in the latter camp. 

At least all the guys – and girls – who thirsted for Shiro didn’t really know him. It was a small comfort to Keith. They didn’t know that he’d baby talked to his cat before he left the house that morning, or that he’d gone back twice to check the stove was off and the door was locked. They didn’t know he’d get a triple caf sugar free vanilla latte when he left, or that he would spend all day squinting at his screen at work. They probably thought Shiro had some tough hip hop or screaming rock in his ears as he pumped out his reps. Keith knew for a fact it was “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” from Mulan.

“Are you done mooning at Shiro? I want in.” Lance appeared next to the machine that Keith was admittedly just sitting at for show. 

“Fine.” He got up. “And no,” he muttered to himself as he walked away. It didn’t seem like he’d ever be done mooning at Shiro. 

It was an exquisitely cruel type of torture to be in love with your best friend. They were always around, always reminding you that they were perfect in every way. If you ever had some blessed respite from contact, when you could recover your senses and relax a little, then you missed them like you’d miss your shadow. Everything would just feel slightly off. 

When they met, Keith had been working at a coffee shop down the street and Shiro would come in every day after the gym. It had taken three conversations before they found out Shiro’s best friend was Keith’s best friend’s older brother. After that it had been easy enough to hang out outside of the coffee shop. And then, before Keith could help it, they were friends. As in platonic, don’t want to rip each other’s clothes off and have rabid sex on the closest flat surface, friends. If it weren’t for the fact that Shiro was a really good friend, that would have made Keith really depressed. 

The crux of the matter was that he was a really good friend. Now he couldn’t picture his life without Shiro in it, even if it was in a sadly clothed and non-sexual way. So he stifled his urges and buried them deep, maintaining that being friends was enough for him. And for a large part of him, it was. He got to laugh with Shiro, talk to him, text, sometimes for hours. No one could make him feel better, make him laugh harder. It made loving him no less painful but it made the alternative, letting him go, unbearable. So the choice was pretty much made for him. 

“Hey, Keith, are you ready to go?”

Lost in thought, Keith hadn’t noticed Shiro approach. An unusual feat, he was usually hyper aware of where the other man was in relation to him.

Up close, whatever pheromones he couldn’t actually smell but could feel affect him, washed over him in a tidal wave. Struggling valiantly to not stare at the sweat soaked vee turning Shiro’s tank see through, he instead studied the poster on the wall behind his friend’s shoulder thoroughly. 

“Ye…”He stopped and cleared his throat as his voice had come out unnecessarily high and breathy. “Yeah.”

In between staring at Shiro he hadn’t actually gotten any working out done himself but he was happy to remove himself from the overwhelming temptation. 

His sanity preserved by the fact that the gym had shower stalls with doors, he only had to survive Shiro emerging, dressed but damp and rumpled. Wearing jeans and a white t-shirt that was still sticking to him in places, and smelling of body wash, Keith’s mouth actually watered. Bending over his shoes to tie the red Converse with unnecessary force, he admitted to himself that perhaps going to the gym with Shiro wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe he had a problem.

 

o.O.o

 

The coffee shop was still mostly empty, the early hour keeping even the most diligent hipster from appearing. The exposed brick, the iron detailing and comfortable seats usually kept them coming in droves. Girls in oversized glasses, bearded men in flannel, typing away on MacBooks with the expression long suffering artistes have worn for centuries. They’d drink coffees it took longer to order than it would to read their novel and talk in hushed voices about the true meaning they wanted to convey. 

Keith knew as it was the coffee shop he’d used to work in. 

The first time Shiro had appeared he’d been a welcome break from all the plaid. Not to mention he looked so good Keith had considered a full time career in staring at him. 

“Morning!”

“Hi, Hunk.” 

Their friend had used to work for the same company they did, Voltron Interactive Media, but had decided his true passion was food and the preparation of food. With his generous bonus he’d saved up enough to buy the coffee shop from the previous owners two years ago. He usually stuck to the kitchens, baking and preparing sandwiches. This early in the morning he could still be found behind the counter however and he moved toward the espresso machine when he saw them. 

As always, Shiro gave the baked goods a wistful look. But cheat day wasn’t until Friday so he turned his eyes from the sugar loaded carbs. Keith wished he was Shiro’s willpower to resist things he wanted. He had no sweet tooth but didn’t doubt he looked at his taller friend much like he looked at the cream filled donuts. With unabashed longing and desire. Telling himself being jealous of a cream puff was too low even for him, he accepted his coffee from Hunk. With a quiet thanks, he inhaled the smell of his large, pitch black Americano. Next to him, Shiro hummed in appreciation at the taste of his vanilla latte. The sound made the hair on Keith’s arms stand on end, his mind gleefully inventing other scenarios where the same rumbling murmur of pleasure could be teased from his friend. Clenching his teeth, he knew he had to get away, and soon. He was at his limit for resisting Shiro for the day and it was only just past seven in the morning. 

Inventing an errand to avoid riding back with Shiro, Keith walked in the other direction until he was sure the older man was safely stuck in traffic on the other side of town. 

Living across the street from each other had seemed a great idea at first. Lately, Keith had been increasingly plagued with dreams, waking and sleeping, of heading across the road and knocking on Shiro’s door. Wait for him to open and then throw everything they had in the wind to get his hands on that sculpted body. Put his lips against that full mouth that smiled slowly, one corner lifting higher than the other. Forget everything, down to his name and…

But he couldn’t. Shiro was his best friend. If Keith ever broke, he’d lose the most important thing in his life. 

Tossing the empty cup, he groaned. He had a really big problem.

 

o.O.o

 

_“Where are you?”_

His phone displayed the message from Shiro and Keith frowned. Sitting in his favourite chair, the one that cuddled you back, sketching out ideas for his hobby project he didn’t have any plans past microwaving dinner and going to bed. A beer sat next to him and he was wrapped up in his most ancient sweats. A perfect night in. 

_“In the womb chair. Why?”_

It was Lance who’d given it the name, but it was oddly apt as it was so comforting to sit in it.

_“Did you forget?”_

_“Forget what?”_ Annoyed, Keith sipped his beer.

_“Lance’s birthday? The Blue Lion?”_

“Oh shit.” Keith both said it out loud and texted it. He had forgotten. He’d thought it was next week. Lance’s actual birthday was next week but as he had a big work thing on, he’d opted to go early. 

_“Cover for me? I’m on my way.”_

Pulling on his cleanest jeans and a dark red t-shirt, he ran a hand through his hair. It could be his birthday gift to Lance to let him make fun of it for as long as he wanted. Today, he’d earned it as it hung long and choppy around his face. Pulling it into a low, short tail, he frowned in the mirror. Adding his Converse and leather jacket, he had to call it good enough with the time he had. 

Jumping into the Uber as it pulled up, he watched the streets rolling by outside. A minute into the ride he had a selfie from Shiro, showing half of his face, blurry and out of focus. Behind him, Hunk, Matt, Pidge and Lance were drinking.

_“You’re missing out,”_ followed in a moment.

_“I’m on my way, in the Uber now.”_

_“Hurry. You know it’s not a party without you.”_

Keith smiled and since there was only the Uber driver there to see, enjoyed the flutter in his chest at the words. 

Reaching the bar, Keith hurried inside. He didn’t have to look for his friends, he could easily hear them when he entered. Matt and Pidge were having a loud discussion about PID-controller implementation for suspension modelling, involving a lot of gesturing. Lance was singing along off key with the stereo and Hunk was teaching Allura how to play flip cup. 

“Mullet!” Lance interrupted his rendition of Call Me Maybe to screech at him. “There you are!”

He weaved between the tables to reach them.

“What happened to you? You look like you just rolled out of bed. What’s up with your hair?”

Slapping Lance’s hands away as he reached for Keith’s hair, he stepped back.

“Sorry, work stuff.”

“We have the same work. When I left there was exactly nothing happening.”

“We work for different departments. Can I get you a drink?”

Lance immediately brightened. “Shots! And two for yourself, you’ve got catching up to do.”

“Fine. What do you want to shot?”

Lance leaned in. “I don’t care. Alcohol.” He slung an arm over his shoulders and leaned heavily against him. “And if I can make a suggestion, I think you should go up to the bar,” he nodded in the direction of it and only now did Keith notice Shiro was leaned against it, waiting to order. “Slap Shiro’s fine ass and ask him if he comes here often.”

“Exactly how drunk are you right now?”

“Just the right amount. Now shoo,” he pushed him off and went to join Allura and Hunk at the table. 

Shaking his head to himself, Keith steered for the bar. He would not go and put his hands on it but he did take the opportunity to check out Shiro’s ass while his back was turned. It really was fine. 

Getting to the bar, he sidled up next to his friend.

“Hey.”

Shiro turned to him and a full grin bloomed on his face. Keith told himself the heat washing over his face at the sight was from the temperature in the crowded bar.

“Keith!”

Keith pegged his enthusiasm for Shiro being about two beers in. Short of drunk but well on his way to tipsy. 

Shiro wrapped an arm around him and Keith wondered how it was a gesture that from Lance crowded him, from Shiro felt comforting and welcome. It also made whatever scent Shiro was wearing rise from his shirt and cloud Keith’s brain. He wanted to lean in close, tuck his face in the crook of the older man’s neck and just inhale. Only for like a century or so. 

In a white t-shirt showing off his toned arms and jeans slung low on narrow hips Shiro had to do nothing but lean against the bar for Keith to feel his pulse race, beating hot and fast under his skin. 

“Buy you a drink?”

 

o.O.o

 

Three hours later, Keith and Shiro were sitting at the table, their friends all off on the dance floor. Matt and Pidge were hopping around like crows on a hot griddle, Hunk was doing something that looked like attempted karate moves while Lance waved his arms around like a windmill in high storm. Allura was the only one doing a moderately good job, moving sinuously against some douchey-looking hipster with his white blonde hair in a manbun. Drink had softened the edges, and Keith felt mellow and relaxed where he lazed in the booth. 

As they watched, a tall, lithe woman with long hair sashayed up to Matt and pulled him into something that looked a lot more like hugging than dancing. Pidge left them to it to exchange pseudo karate with Hunk. 

“How do they do it?”

Shiro spoke, voice low, his brows knitted.

“Hmm?”

“That,” he gestured to the dance floor. “They just...find someone. Pick them up. They make it look so easy.”

Keith knew that all Shiro would have to do to get picked up was breathe and exist. It was the part that came after that was a mystery to his friend. Despite having the looks for a boyfriend or two a day, Shiro preferred emotional attachment to quick and easy. It hadn’t gone too well so far. In fact, Keith could count on one hand the times Shiro had been on a date since he’d known him. Not because he’d jealously watched from his window as some guy who’d never be close to good enough came to pick him up, or anything. No, he just knew. Like any good friend would. 

Keith ran his tongue over his teeth, trying to find the right words.

“It could be, for you.”

Shiro sighed. 

“You know I’m not like that. Picking up strangers in bars, just seems so…”

“Sad?”

“I was going to say risky,” Shiro laughed. “You don’t know anything about them, have no idea what they’re like. You just pick someone you like the look of. It’s the worst system ever.”

“I believe that’s why there’re bios on all the dating apps, Mr Romance. So you can see if you have something in common.” He glanced at his friend. It was selfish, he reminded himself, selfish to want Shiro to be alone. To stay single so Keith could have his full attention. The other man deserved to be happy. “You should get one. An app. To find someone.”

Shiro mumbled something.

“What?”

He leaned over the table.

“I said, I did.”

Keith’s blood, pleasantly warmed by the alcohol, froze.

“You...You did?”

Shiro gave a short nod.

“Give it.”

“Pardon?”

“Your phone, give it to me.”

“Keith…”

“I have to make sure you’re bio is good, otherwise you’ll never find someone.”

Shiro handed him his phone, the lock screen a picture of him and Keith at Halloween last year. They were smiling like idiots. Unlocking it with the code he already knew, he flicked til he found the app. FindR. He recognised the logo from his own phone. With a sinking heart he noted Shiro had seventy-two notifications waiting for him. Of course he did. 

Not that Keith didn’t have a similar number waiting on his phone, but when it came to himself he knew he only had that app as a last line of defence against going absolutely insane. It had been a long time since he’d used it but there had been a time or two in the past when he’d had to give in and settle for some substitute. When his hand and his imagination hadn’t been enough, when the ghost of Shiro had haunted his every sense. It had been a long time now though. A substitute never did anything but remind him of what he was missing.

He opened the app and was met by a photo he knew well. Shiro’s profile picture was one Keith had taken, of him with his black cat Paladin on his lap. Then one of him on his motorbike, and the obligatory post-gym shirtless selfie. Keith flicked past them quickly so he wouldn’t get distracted. The biography Shiro had written was long, detailed and completely over the top. 

Keith’s followed the normal pattern of “5’11, 170lb. No smokers, Taylor Swift fans or animal haters.” Shiro’s was an earnest middle school essay about him, his family, his cat and his interests. It was really...Shiro.

“It’s perfect.” Keith mumbled and handed Shiro his phone back. 

“Here,” he reached for his own. Before he’d thought it through, he found Shiro’s handle and sent him a “super interested” poke. “Now you’ll have someone to talk to on there. Just match me back, and then we’ll be connected.”

“Cool!” Shiro flicked his screen and the fireworks animation for a super interested match, played on Keith’s phone. “That’s really nice of you, Keith.”

He turned his attention to his phone again and smiled.

“I like your profile picture.”

Unlike most, Keith had stuck with one picture, a picture Lance had taken to tease him. He’d been staring at Shiro at the time, head leaned against his hand as he watched Shiro across the room. Lance had intended for it to be blackmail material but there was no way to see what he’d been looking at. So when he received it, colours drained out and the filter softening his angular face, he’d realised its potential. Lance had not, the accompanying message reading _“You’re pathetic. See for yourself. TELL HIM.”_ Ignoring the message, he had to admit there was something softer and more approachable about him than normal when he looked at Shiro. It had translated into the picture as something wistful and romantic and Keith was not above using it over his own badly lit, blurry selfies. 

“Thanks.”

“What are you looking at? You look all dreamy.”

Keith stiffened. “Probably food.” He cleared his throat. 

“So...now that we’re pretend matched, do I get to practice what I’d say if I found someone I liked on here?” Shiro gestured with his phone. 

“Ah...sure.”

With a chuckle, Shiro bent over his phone, some of his hair slipping to fall across his forehead. Keith’s hand tightened around his beer to keep it from brushing the strands back, feeling the silky locks between his fingers. 

His phone dinged and he saw a message from the dating app displayed. From Shiro. 

Opening it, he saw the message interface open, and then his friend’s message.

_“Hey”_

“You absolutely can’t open with just “hey”.”

But he still typed out his reply.

_“Hey back.”_

_“I like your profile picture”_ plus a heart eye emoji.

With a smile, Keith looked up. “Better.” He typed again.

_“Thanks. I like yours. You have a beautiful, stunning, gorgeous...cat.”_

Shiro snorted a laugh across the table, his fingers already moving across the phone screen.

_“I know! You should come over and pet him sometime. He likes cuddles…”_

“Cutesy,” Keith grimaced.

Shiro grinned and leaned back in the booth, arm hiked over the back of it. Keith fought valiantly to not let his eyes slide to the wide expanse of chest, sheathed in strained cotton, in front of him. 

“I am cutesy. I think anyone who approaches me should know.”

“How are you two-hundred pounds of muscle, at 6’2 and still the sappiest human being I’ve ever met?”

And why did Keith find it the sexiest combination in the universe?

“Practice.” Shiro laughed before sobering, his expression a bit wistful. “It’s just...so weird.”

“What is?”

“What people assume when they see me. It’s like they think they know me. I like to keep in shape and have an all right face, and they think I have to be this tough, rugged, macho douche.”

Shiro describing his own looks had to be the understatement of the century but Keith ignored it for the real issue. 

“Shiro, you’re perfect, just the way you are.” He thought back to when they had first met, when Shiro had told him something that had stuck with him ever since. “Don’t let people’s expectations dictate who you should be.”

It had been when he was working in the coffee shop, floundering. He’d had no plans, no dreams, no hope. He’d just been working to keep a roof over his head and see himself through the next day. He’d had no higher schooling, no skills - hadn’t wanted any. Then Shiro had entered his life, talking animatedly about his job, his dreams for the future, his plans. It was made Keith realise his future was a long, boring stretch of nothingness. It had been Shiro who helped him finish his GED long distance, who’d been there to show him how to apply for college, who’d encouraged him his drawing was good enough for the art programme. It had been Shiro who casually overtipped him for his coffees so he could buy his school books, Shiro who encouraged him through his exams and showcases. He owed everything he had now to one person and he would never forget it. 

A crooked smile slid over his friend’s face. “Recycling my material?”

“I don’t know what you mean, someone very wise said that. Pretty sure it was the ancient, wizened dojo master in a kung-fu movie.”

Shiro snorted. “I’m older than you by four years, I don’t think that qualifies me to be an ancient dojo master.” 

Keith, glad he’d gotten Shiro to smile again, grinned. 

“I don’t know. You’re pretty old. You have a 401k, you have a mortgage, you floss like three times a day.”

“Everyone should have a 401k.”

“See, old.” 

Laughing together at the comfortable old joke between them, they were interrupted by Lance dropping a tray of shots on the table.

“Shots!” He called unnecessarily for anyone who may have missed the dangerously overloaded tray. 

“No thanks, I’m too old,” Shiro said with a grin. Getting up, he smoothly escaped before Lance could trap him in place. Before Keith could follow, Lance slid into the booth.

Pidge, Hunk and Allura joined them and there was no way for Keith to escape. Straining his neck over them, he could see Shiro over at the bar. On the dance floor, Matt had switched partners it looked like and was now dancing with the white haired man bun. If you could call it dancing, it looked mostly like they were grinding and making out.

Unable to avoid two of the shots Lance passed around, Keith felt loose and warm and generally pleased half an hour later. Fishing his phone from his pocket, he had to close one eye to be able to type but that was fine. 

_“What are you up to tonight?”_

He sent it to Shiro through the app and looked over to the bar. Allura had moved over at some point and they were talking animatedly. But Shiro did look at his phone when the message came through and then he looked up across the room to Keith with a smile. Typing something back, Keith waited for the buzz to come through. 

_“Out with friends. You?”_

Typing out his reply, he sent it. 

_“Same. We should meet up.”_

When he looked up to see if his friend had gotten it, he saw that Allura was no longer next to Shiro. Someone else was. A tall, built man, with cinnamon skin and caramel eyes framed by impossibly long lashes. He was leaning against the bar next to Shiro, unabashed interest screaming from every line of his long, lean body. And to his horror, Keith could see a mirrored interest in his friend. He’d turned fully towards him, smiling. The darker man reached out and pulled Shiro closer to say something into his ear, probably under the pretense the music was too loud. A vague flush bloomed on Shiro’s cheeks and piercing ice struck Keith’s heart.

Before he could think, he’d pushed away from the table. Any magnanimous promises he’d made himself were drowned under a furious torrent of jealousy. Washing over him, drowning him, his eyes trained on where the man had his hand on Shiro’s shoulder. Stalking over, he caught the man’s eyes where he was still speaking directly into Shiro’s ear. Widening a fraction when they met Keith’s, he pulled back, his hand slipping from Shiro’s shoulder. 

He took another step back when Keith reached them. Holding up his hands in front of him in the universal gesture for “no harm”, he spoke. He had a deep, attractive voice too, damn him.

“Sorry, I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” Shiro echoed. But luckily the man had already turned his back and was moving away between the bodies in the crowded bar.

Confused, his friend turned and spotted him.

“Oh.” He shook his head and sighed.

“What?”

“Nothing. I think I was getting picked up but that guy thought you were my boyfriend and left.”

“Did he?” Satisfaction melted some of the ice in Keith’s heart. 

Shiro pouted a little. “He was good looking too.”

Alcohol, jealousy and pure, unadulterated need stole the words out of Keith before he could think.

“I guess I need to make it up to you.” He leaned his back against the bar, adopting a stance very similar to the one the guy hitting on Shiro had. “How about I pick you up instead?”

“More practice, Yoda?”

“Yeah.” Liar. He was such a liar. And a coward. A lying coward. A lying coward who was in love with his best friend who was way too good for him and deserved a lot better.

“So…” Without Keith noticing, Shiro had leaned closer. “Do you come here often?” His voice was a deep purr and it did things to him he hadn’t thought possible. 

“Quiznak, Shiro, did you travel back in time to get those pick up lines?”

Shiro pouted again, a sure sign he was well on his way to sloshed. 

“What would you say then?”

“It’s not so much about what you say as _how_ you say it.”

“So, show me, Mr Suave.”

Keith felt a million things in that moment and suave was not even on the list.

Sliding closer, stepping in between Shiro’s knees where he was sitting on the barstool, he leaned in. Leaned in so close he could smell Shiro, feel the warmth of his skin radiating through his clothes. His heart pumped in hard, almost painful knocks. Looking up at Shiro through his eyelashes, biting his lip, he saw Shiro’s eyes fall to his mouth. 

“Hey,” he breathed, nerves making it a hoarse croak. But his friend swallowed, a flush spreading over his cheeks as he swallowed. And then swallowed again.

Looking up and away for a second, he cleared his throat.

“Okay, I see what you mean. You are...far, far too good at that.”

“Who says the lesson’s over?” Keith flicked his hair out his eyes with a toss of his head. Tilted it consideringly. “Can I buy you a drink?”

For a second, Shiro looked crestfallen. Then a smile, a devious, knowing, confident and - fuck it all - goddamn sexy smile, slid over his features. His voice was a dragging, deep velvet when he replied.

“ _You_ can buy me two.”

Christ fuck, what had he just started? Why was he such an idiot? 

With his mouth dry as sandpaper, Keith gestured to the bartender and when their bottles arrived, he took a deep pull from his. Shiro’s eyes trailed from his lips to his throat and with a punch of desire more potent than any alcohol, Keith realised he was watching his throat work. The grey gaze he knew so well was considering, knowing. It made desire wind tighter in his stomach, its iron bands locking him in place.

Putting the beer down, desperate to put a wall between them again, something to shield him from the tension he wanted to break loose, he mumbled,

“You’re already better at this game than you know.”

“Yeah?” Shiro’s voice was still that deep, smooth timbre, like whisky on a cold day and Keith desperately hoped his friend wouldn’t notice the semi he was sporting just from hearing it. With how close he was leaning, the possibility thankfully seemed slim. “Am I ready for the advanced class?”

Run away. He should run away. Right now. Really far away.

But his body betrayed him and his voice deepened in response. “You think you can handle it?”

Shiro’s hand came up to rest on his hip, his thumb hooked through his belt loop. It burned through the fabric like a brand. The fact that it completely enveloped his hip, reaching all the way around made images of having both Shiro’s large hands wrapped around his hips as he rode him dance in his mind. He could probably lift him and let him sink back down again as he wished, his bigger frame and built arms allowing him to do whatever he wanted to Keith. He had to swallow back a whimper.

“Why don’t you try me, baby?”

Keith’s mind rolled, the world under his feet heaving and giving way. He was falling, hurtling through space and a noise like thunder shook his mind. It felt like dying and Keith didn’t want it to ever stop. 

Keith realised their lips were inches apart, his hand having somehow ended up on Shiro’s shoulder. His friend’s hand was still on his hip, his thumb rubbing against the bare skin just over the waist of his jeans, under his shirt. His breath fluttered over Keith’s lips. God, how he wanted this. He wanted it with every cell of his body pulling toward Shiro with a force as elemental and undeniable as gravity. He wanted this to be real, not a game. He wanted Shiro’s lips against his with no pretense. 

“Shiro, I…” _I don’t want to pretend anymore. I want you. I like you…_

_I love you._

Shiro’s eyes cleared and he leaned back, his hand falling. The skin he’d touched suddenly felt freezing cold without the heat of Shiro’s skin. 

“Too much? Sorry, I got a bit carried away with the lesson there.” He rubbed a hand over his neck and chuckled. The sound broke Keith’s heart. No one who had felt the same pulling, awful, towering need could laugh it off that easy. To Shiro, it had been just a game.

Which you started, he reminded himself. His father’s words from a long time ago were suddenly in his mind. _You wanna play with fire, you have to accept you’ll get burnt_. Keith had never been smart enough to stay away from fire.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, it's been a long time since I wrote actual, honest to God smut so I've been humming and hawing over this for a long time. Hopefully it's not too bad! Do check the updated tags if there's anything you think you won't like to read.

_“Are we okay?”_

  
The text was from Shiro, through their normal text app. Seeing it, Keith groaned and pulled the covers over his head. He was hungover, mortified, sick to his stomach with fear and helplessly horny and it was one of the worst emotional cocktails he’d ever had to endure.

  
Had he seriously flirted with Shiro last night? Bit his lip and looked up at him as if he had something to offer that Shiro hadn’t seen and not wanted almost every day for the last four years? Had he really been on the verge of throwing out the one person he considered family from his life just to get Shiro’s hands on him? He really was the worst.

  
A long shower and some breakfast softened the hangover. An unsatisfying, guilty wank in the shower took the edge of the horny. But he was still unbearably afraid and mortified as he sat at the table, spinning his phone. He had to reply to Shiro, he knew, but what did you say? _“Sorry I was about to tell you I love you in a bar while we drunkenly played a game I started where we pretended we like each other cause I’m an idiot. Please stay my friend.”_

  
In the end, he couldn’t come up with anything other than,

_“We’re good. I’m sorry about last night.”_

_“Me too. Too many shots.”_

_“Yeah, let’s call it Lance’s fault.”_

_“Deal ;)”_

With a deep breath, Keith got up from the chair. It seemed they were good again.

 

o.O.o

 

Spinning in his desk chair, Keith chewed the end of his pencil. Working late had so far not produced any results. He had a meeting with the team heads tomorrow and so far he had nothing to show for it. He’d had something but he’d scrapped it all a week ago to start over. The game basics was sci fi in space, with cool spaceships, but set on an RPG platform. The characters were all done, but they’d decided each character should have their own spaceship. You were able to choose which character and so which spaceship you wanted in the first section of the game. As art director at Voltron Interactive Media, Keith was responsible for the ideas of all looks. He needed to come up with some cool looking spaceships, by tomorrow, that could be customized for the characters and compete with all the other video games set in space that were coming out.

  
Sighing, he leaned back in his chair. He had nothing. He had scrapped ideas, half drawn spaceships littering the ground around him, his sketch pad filled with ideas he didn’t like. He preferred paper until the idea was set, only switching to digital once he had a feel for the image. Right now he had a feel for nothing. He’d had too much coffee, too many sweets and too long a day and his mind felt wobbly and blank. He wanted to go home and get into bed.  
The rest of the art department had left a long time ago, none of them able to do much until he had settled on an idea. Lance had popped his head in, on his way from the PR department where he worked to ask if Keith wanted a beer. Keith had declined by throwing a scrunched up paper at Lance’s head. Lance had smoothed it out to find an early concept sketch.

  
“This is terrible.”

Keith had groaned and Lance had dropped the sketch in the bin. “

Keep at it, tiger. You’ll get there, you always do.”

  
Pidge had been the next person to drop by, a sardonic “down to the wire, huh?” before waving and heading off.

  
As Shiro hadn’t been by, Keith assumed he was still around somewhere. The man worked longer, weirder hours even than Keith. As VP of Voltron, he and Allura, the CEO, shared the duties of managing the company. He was probably sitting up at his desk one floor above, that wrinkle he got between his eyebrows when he had to write thorny emails digging into his forehead. You knew you had it bad when you found forehead wrinkles sexy.

  
Before he could get bogged down in thoughts about how sexy Shiro looked in general in his suits, or on the days when he forewent his contacts for glasses and Keith had to venture up to the floor above an inordinate amounts of times a day on made up errands, he stopped himself. Those were not thoughts to entertain at the moment.  
Then again, it wasn’t like he was making progress.

  
Because he was an idiot, and because he didn’t learn from his mistakes, and because obviously he was clearly a masochist, as well as a glutton for punishment, he opened the dating app on his phone and sent Shiro a message.

  
_“Hey, it’s Keith from the bar.”_

  
The reply came quickly. _“Who?”_

  
_“Ha ha.”_

_“Hang on, killer blue eyes, dark hair, legs for days? I remember. What’s up?”_

Keith snorted. Shiro was such a dork. And since his heart was beating really fast in response, he had to be the King of the Dorks.

_“Not much. Stuck at work. You?”_

_“Same.”_

The icon that Shiro was writing another message flashed and Keith waited.

_“So...what are you wearing? That’s how this goes, right?”_

Sitting by himself in the office landscape, Keith laughed out loud.

_“Nothing much, of course. The office is so...hot.”_

He imagined he could hear Shiro’s deep, rumbling laugh, even though he was one floor above.

_“Trouble with the AC? Or…?”_

_“More like trouble with not thinking about you and last Saturday.”_

Shiro was typing. Then changed his mind. Then typed again. After a few deleted ones, where Keith’s heart was in his throat, his phone dinged.

_“And what exactly were you thinking about, baby?”_

Keith’s chest was heaving, his palms sweating. Were they really doing this?

_“I wish I’d taken you home.”_

_“I wish I’d told you everything I wanted to tell you.”_

_“I wish I’d kissed you.”_

He’d typed them all. Deleted them all. His thumb was hovering over the send button when he was startled by a voice.

“Keith?”

Shiro. Shiro was standing in the doorway, outlined in the light from the corridor behind him. He looked beautiful. The tie and jacket he’d worn that morning were discarded somewhere, his shirt sleeves rolled up and vest hanging open. The first two buttons at his collar were undone and his hair was messy from him running his hands through it all day. And he was wearing his glasses. He was holding his phone and Keith heard the question in the way he’d said his name. He wasn’t just getting his attention. He was asking what Keith was doing.

What the _hell_ was he doing?

Reality, momentarily suspended in the dark of his office, the strange feeling of being alone in a space you associated with people and activity, the way the only light was an even circle around his desk, it had all made him forget for a minute that nothing had changed. Shiro was still his best friend and Keith was still the charity case Shiro refused to give up on.

“Sorry, phone died.” He lied, and stuffed the device into the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie.

“Oh.” Shiro hovered, still standing in the doorway. “So, what were you going to say?”

Keith stared at his computer screen.

“I…” He cleared his throat. “I hadn’t decided. But I think it’s a bit late for a lesson, I really need to get on with this work.”

_What did you do? What did you just do?_ His brain screamed at him, frustration tearing at the fabric of his sanity.

“Oh,” Shiro said again, quieter this time. “Well, I’ll see you at the meeting tomorrow, Keith.”

He turned away and headed down the hall. Getting up, Keith was about to run after him. Run after him and let all the lies he’d allowed himself to hide behind fall away. Then he sat back down. He had no right to put that on Shiro. It wasn’t his fault Keith hadn’t been able to help falling for him. It wasn’t his responsibility to nurse Keith through his broken heart after he had to reject him. He’d bet he’d reject him really nicely, with a pained twinge in his voice. With a groan, Keith dropped his head into his hands.

 

o.O.o

 

“These are amazing, Keith.”

Allura’s voice was warm, the polished accent dancing around the syllables. Up on the screen in the meeting room was the concept art he’d stayed in the office until four this morning to finish. Then he’d dragged himself home to stare at the ceiling for two hours before showering and heading back into work. He had no doubt he looked as rough as he felt.

“Thanks.”

“How did you think of these? Flying mechanical lions,” she shook her head. “It’s brilliant.”

He was not ever going to tell anyone he’d been sketching Shiro, the way he’d looked in that doorway, so heartbreakingly beautiful. One sketch had turned into more, until he’d filled the page with just Shiro. That was nothing new, his sketchbook at home was pretty much a study in Shiro. But that late at night, caffeine chasing him on, his tired brain had wandered. He’d thought of Shiro coming to the coffee shop that first time. Of how he’d helped him, protected him. Almost dreaming, he’d started a sketch of something that reminded him of Shiro. A lion. A proud, majestic, brave animal.

When the finished sketch was staring back at him, something had clicked and for the next few hours he’d been working, the lion propped up against his screen as he turned to digital.

The ships were lions, mechanical ones. He’d even come up with a way to slot them together into a bigger ship, a move he’d suggested be required for boss fights.

“It’s really innovative, I haven’t seen anything like it before,” Pidge added.

“Me neither. PR for this would be a piece of cake,” Lance said.

In fact, everyone seemed to have a lot to say except for Shiro. Keith hadn’t really dared to look at him but he’d noted he was a lot quieter than normal.

When the meeting finished up, Keith delayed, shuffling his papers so everyone would leave before him. His plan backfired as Shiro was waiting at the door when he finally got up. His arms were crossed over his wide chest and it looked like he’d forgotten to shave that morning. At this point, the fact could only chase a vague flutter down Keith’s spine. He felt like a creep. A small, disgusting, unwanted insect.

Bending his head, he steered for the door. Shiro didn’t move and Keith had to stop or walk right into him. He really wished he could. He wanted Shiro to look into his head and see everything he wanted to but couldn’t say. To open his arms and pull him close, letting Keith just rest against him, safe in his embrace.

“Did you sleep at all last night?”

Dumbly, Keith shook his head. He didn’t recognise Shiro’s voice, it was detached and cool.

“I think you should go home and sleep.”

“I have to-”

“I think you should go right now. I’ll take you, I don’t want you behind the wheel in this state.”

“Shiro, I’m-”

“Let’s go.”

With that he turned and unable to protest, Keith followed him like a toy on a string. In the garage, Shiro unlocked his car. Relieved it wasn’t the bike, even though he knew Shiro never took it to work, he climbed into the black BMW. The ride to his place was silent, the car humming quietly and the AC whirring the only sounds to be heard. It made him feel cold in a way that had nothing to do with the air conditioning.

Pulling in gently to a stop, Shiro just waited when they reached his building.

“Shiro…” Keith watched his hands curl and uncurl in his lap.

“Go to bed, Keith.”

Shutting his eyes to hide the tears that suddenly sprung into them, he stumbled out of the car. Breathing harshly he managed to keep them at bay until he closed his door behind him. Then they started falling unchecked down his cheeks.

 

o.O.o

 

When he woke, he felt gross. The tears had left him with a headache and his mouth felt disgusting. Showering and brushing his teeth, he pulled on his softest, oldest jeans and a sweatshirt Shiro had left by accident months ago. It was too big, the sleeves hanging past his fingers and the hem reaching to the middle of his butt. But nothing comforted him more than the soft fabric, despite it losing the scent of Shiro months ago. Keith could recall it well enough anyway.

Knowing he had fucked things up irreparably with Shiro anyway, he walked to the window with his phone in hand. He could see the lights on across the street. The older man was home.

_“I was thinking about how I shouldn’t have let you go home alone that evening. It keeps me up at night, thinking about it.”_

He sent the message through the dating app because he was a coward and would stay a coward.

Across the street he saw Shiro appear in his window. From the distance he couldn’t make out his face but when his phone rang, he answered it on the first ring.

“Keith…” Shiro’s voice was tired, pained. Keith kicked himself in the stomach mentally. “What do you want from me?”

He leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the window, squeezing his eyes shut.

“I…” It was buried so deep inside of him, the words he’d always wanted to say. It was like excavating his own body to dig them up, pull the feelings painfully to the surface. “ _You_. I want you. I’ve always wanted you.”

A stuttered breath answered him. “...Keith?”

Still with his eyes closed, Keith curled his fist to rest against the window too, as if the action would bring him closer to Shiro even though he was across the street.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I fell for you, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t mean to, I promise. It was just...I just couldn’t...I couldn’t help it, Shiro. You’re my best friend but I love you. I’ve always loved you and I get that you...That we can’t be cause I’m just me and you deserve so much better but I need you to know.”  
He couldn’t help the tears that fell, wasn’t even ashamed. Losing a friend hurt like hell.

“I get if you don’t want to see me, it would be weird and I...I’ll need some time to get over this. Get over you. I think it would be best if we didn’t...didn’t…”

The doorbell rang, and then Shiro’s voice was in his ear. He was out of breath.

“Open the door, Keith.”

“Shiro, please...Please go away.”

“Keith, open the door or I will break it down.”

With a shaking breath, Keith hung up. Squaring his shoulders as if that would somehow get him through seeing Shiro without becoming a blubbering mess, he headed to the hall. Exhaling slowly, he opened the door.

Shiro, still dressed in the shirt and slacks he’d worn that day in the office, lowered his phone.

“Did you seriously just confess to me over the phone?”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“No.” He crossed his arms. “But I think you need a lesson on expressing your feelings. I know confessing is something you do eye to eye.”

“Are you serious right now?” Keith’s hand tightened around the door handle, wanting to slam the door shut. Shiro stepped closer.

“Dead serious. Look me in the eye, Keith.”

Dragging his eyes to Shiro’s, he crossed his arms himself. Maybe the small act of defiance would offer a fraction of protection from the rejection. “What?”

“I love you too.” Shiro’s voice had softened, his eyes still holding Keith’s.

“I...what?” His arms fell to his sides.

Shiro stepped even closer. His hand came up to Keith’s chin, tilting his head back.

“I said, I love you too, Keith.”

Then his lips were on Keith’s and he had to wonder if he was still asleep and dreaming. But nothing his mind could conjure could feel this good. He didn’t have the imagination for it.

Shiro’s lips were warm and soft, but the kiss was hard and hot. Shiro was kissing him like...like he’d wanted to do it for a long time. Moaning, Keith woke from his stupor and kissed him back. Mouth opening willingly under Shiro’s, he felt his tongue ravage him. Wrapping his arms around Shiro’s shoulders, pulling him closer, the heat started beating heavily in his stomach. The older man mouthed a trail of kisses down his jaw, to his neck, and Keith’s nerve endings sang. Electricity fizzled everywhere Shiro was touching and Keith wanted to press closer and closer until they were the same body.

“H...How long?”

Shiro stopped what he was doing, lifting his head. The way he looked at him was so impossibly tender that Keith both wanted to curl up and hide from the emotions it woke in him, and at the same time bask in it forever.

“Since the first time I saw you.”

Keith blinked. “But...but I was no one back then.”

“You were never no one, Keith. I saw you behind that counter and I knew I was done for.”

“I...I felt it too. God, Shiro, I’ve wanted you for so long.” His voice was hushed, reverent.

“You have me. You’ll always have me.”

With a groan, Keith rose up and captured Shiro’s lips again. Running his hands into the other man’s hair, he felt the moan reverberate into his own body. Shiro pushed him backwards until they hit the wall, and pinned Keith there with his bulk. Keith had never felt happier at being trapped. With no regard for if it made him look needy or desperate, he curled his leg over Shiro’s hip. The other man got the message and with an ease Keith hadn’t overestimated in his dreams, lifted him up by his thighs. He’d expected to wrap his legs around his waist to stay there but Shiro was holding him in place with no help from him at all and Keith moaned into Shiro’s mouth at the sensation of being weightless, held at the other man’s command. His hips jerked forward, desperately seeking friction and Shiro appeased him, rolling his hips against Keith’s crotch. Shifting his grip so he was holding Keith by his ass, pushing them together, his eyes wanted to roll back into his head. He was close already after a few minutes of kissing and groping. Well, kissing and groping Shiro. It was no surprise, really.

Knowing the need that had lived so close under his skin for so long wouldn’t take long before it enveloped him and pulled him under completely, washing him away in the current. Before that he needed something else, something more.

“Wait, wait,” he pulled their lips apart with regret. Shiro leaned their foreheads together, breathing hard.

“Sorry, was that too much too fast?”

“No, I…” He tried to summon any courage he had. He had to know. He had to know what Shiro felt like, what he tasted like. So his voice shuddered out of him, his eyes pulled to Shiro’s by magnetic force. “I want to blow you. Please? Let me?”

“Christ, Keith.” Shiro’s eyelids fluttered. His chuckle was a deep rumble. “Let you? I’d beg you to.”

“Another day, maybe.” Keith wiggled. “Uh, Shiro? Will you…put me down?”

“Oh. Yeah.” He set Keith down, sliding their bodies together every inch of the way.

If he’d been obsessed with what that raw strength could do before, he was ten times more interested in it now. Burning from the inside out, he switched them, pushing Shiro against the wall this time. Tearing at his shirt, he growled in feral delight as the buttons popped off, clinking against the floor. With his shirt hanging open, his pupils blown as he watched Keith, his lips reddened and his cock outlined against the soft materials of the slacks he wore, Keith thought he might come at the sight. Filing every detail away for when his hand and imagination would have to do, he reached out to touch. Shiro’s skin was soft, covering the hard muscle underneath. The planes and dips shivered under Keith’s touch and he wanted to spend an eternity exploring them. He wanted to know them better than his own body, find every spot that would drag sighs from Shiro’s lips. Following his hand with his tongue, he eased lower, slowly kneeling down. Under his lips, the other man’s unbelievable abs jolted, tensing to breaking. Sweat was already pooling in the furrows between them and Keith’s head spun at the sight.

“Keith…” His name from Shiro’s lips, dragged out and desperate, sent a shudder through him, from his head down to his toes.

Wasting no more time, he let his shaking hands find the fastening of the slacks, slipping the zipper lower. Heat brushed the back of his fingers, and he could feel saliva pool at the back of his mouth. God, he was actually drooling at the thought of sucking Shiro off. His heart hammering, he pulled the waistband of the gray boxers down until Shiro sprang free. Keith swallowed hard at the sight. Of course, like the rest of him, it had to be fucking magnificent. It was big, and hard and already leaking. Keith wondered if tears of gratitude would be inappropriate. Wrapping his hand around the base, Shiro’s head hit the wall behind him and a garbled noise escaped his throat. All Keith felt was the girth of Shiro's shaft in his hand. A hollow, slithering need to be filled rolled through him, muscles clenching around nothing in anticipation. He wanted it inside him so bad.

Leaning in, he opened his mouth and let the warm, silky skin meet his tongue. The skin was so soft. It tasted warm and was heavy on his tongue and his cock twitched in his jeans. It felt so right. Sliding forward, he took as much of Shiro as he could manage, desperate to feel him deep inside. Testing what he liked, he licked eagerly around the head, sucked hard then light, feathered kisses along the length. Shiro made noises that could have fuelled Keith’s daydreams for years. Enjoying the sound he made when Keith took him deep the most, he happily relaxed his throat and slid close.

“ _Fuck_ , baby, you’re so good at that.”

Keith whimpered, the endearment and praise chasing white-hot, blinding fire through his veins. Reaching for Shiro’s hand, he guided it to his stubby ponytail. Carefully, Shiro pulled at it, then nudged him forward. Encouraging him, Keith moaned. The sound had to feel good as Shiro’s hand tightened in his hair. Catching on, the other man made his moves more insistent and Keith closed his eyes in bliss.

“You look so...good taking me, Keith, I wish you could see it.”

A whine rose in his throat, vibrating against Shiro’s cock and he swore. Like a switch had been flicked Shiro let his control slip and started hammering Keith’s throat. He would have never thought it would feel good but seeing Shiro, the stoic, calm Shiro, lose his control over Keith pushed him close to coming in seconds. Feeling Shiro fucking him, wanting him, he couldn’t help himself and reached into his jeans.

“Fuck, yes, Keith!”

Shiro was staring down at him dazedly, his hand keeping Keith’s head in place. Not hard enough to hurt, but comforting and arousing at once. His fingers were wrapped in his hair and Shiro’s cock was slipping past his lips, over his tongue and to the back of his throat with every thrust. Staring back at up him, marvelling that this miracle of a man wanted him, Keith sped up his hand. It only took three pumps of his dry hand before he was coming, eyes squeezing shut and moans stifled by Shiro’s length in his throat. At the sight, Shiro’s thrust grew erratic, his hips stuttering and Keith hollowed out his cheeks, sucking hard. He felt Shiro’s hand pull at his hair, his voice hoarse.

“Keith, I’m...I’m coming, Keith…”

He appreciated the warning, it was considerate. But there was no chance in hell Keith wouldn’t find out what Shiro tasted like. Feeling the warm saltiness on his tongue, he swallowed eagerly. Of course the taste wasn’t what he was after, it was mildly unpleasant at the best of times but the knowledge that it was Shiro’s, that he’d made him feel good...It made Keith lick the last drops from him with a moan.

“Come up here.” Despite having just cum, Shiro was still strong enough to hoist Keith to his feet and he slammed their lips together. Breaking apart, he leaned his forehead against Keith’s, his breath over Keith’s lips making him shiver.

“I think that was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Yeah?” Keith leaned back so he could see Shiro’s face. He was blushing and it was the most adorable thing Keith had ever seen.

“But are you okay? I...I kinda lost it there.”

“Okay?” Keith laughed. “Shiro, did you not notice me coming before you did? I liked it.”

“You...you did?”

“Yeah, I did. Maybe I’ve…” he looked away, felt his cheeks warm.

“Maybe what?” Shiro urged gently.

“Maybe I’ve got a thing for you being...bigger than me.”

“Like...cause I’m tall?”

Keith wriggled in embarrassment but Shiro wouldn’t let go of his hold around his waist. “No, like…” He watched his hands on Shiro’s chest. He could feel the other man’s heartbeat under his touch. “Like, I like it that you’re strong enough you could...do anything to me.”

“Oh.” Shiro looked hesitant for a moment. “You know I’d never hurt you, right?”

“Of course I know that! That’s why it turns me on, you idiot. I trust you’d never actually hurt me.”

“Good.” Something devious sneaked into Shiro’s gaze. “So…” he tightened his hold on Keith, lifting him off his feet. Wrapping his legs around Shiro’s waist, Keith hung on.

“You like it when I do this?”

“Do we have to talk about this?” Keith buried his face in Shiro’s shoulder.

“Oh, we really do.” Shiro’s voice was dark and it sent shivers tingling down Keith’s spine. He turned them around, pressing Keith to the wall once more. “You like it when I do this, baby?” So he’d noticed how Keith felt about the endearment. God, he was going to get smug. But he couldn’t really bring himself to feel cross about it as he wanted Shiro to never stop calling him that. “Press you up against the wall, pin you in place, keep you where I want you?”

Keith’s breath stuttered, his throat slamming close. Shiro’s voice was so deep and soothing and still it fanned the flames high once again in moments.

“Hmm?”

“Yes.” Keith’s voice was only a breathy whisper.

“Good, baby, use your words.”

“Yes, I like it.”

Shiro’s hum rolled over him, drowned him. He was already hard again, even though he'd been spent just a second ago.

“Then do you want me to take you to the bedroom and fuck you?”

Could you physically faint from arousal? Keith thought he was about to find out.

“P...Please,” he whimpered. “Please, Shiro.”

Hoisting him higher, Shiro caught his lips again, carrying him into the bedroom. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Keith on his lap, he murmured approvingly under his breath between kisses. Keith could feel him hardening again and ground desperately against him. Since Shiro had lifted him off his feet again, that hollow yearning had intensified inside him and he wanted to be full, filled to the brim with Shiro moving inside him. Joining them, claiming him. His insides clenched, pulsing and hot around nothing and he whimpered. How could he be so far gone again already?

Pulling Shiro’s shirt fully off of him impatiently, Keith rocked on is lap. Shiro’s hands ran up his sides, then paused.

“Is this my shirt?”

“Yeah. You forgot it here.”

“It looks good on you.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “It’s big on me.”

Shiro ran his tongue behind his teeth. “Mhm.” His eyes travelled to Keith’s gaze, the usual mercury darkened to slate. “That’s why it looks so good.”

Keith blinked. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be true Shiro liked that he was smaller than him. It would just be too...perfect.

“Do you...want me to leave it on?”

“Next time. I want to see you. All of you.”

Keith’s mind clouded at the mention of next time but he managed to pull the shirt over his head, tossing it away. Dressed in nothing but his jeans and underwear, Shiro’s eyes slid over his chest. He knew he was no Greek god without his shirt like the other man but he did all right, a wiry strength and lean muscles adding definition to his admittedly skinny build.

“You’re...beautiful.” The words rushed out of Shiro on an exhale. “How are you so beautiful? I…” His eyes roved Keith’s shoulders, his chest, his face. His hands, his large warm hands, came up to run in the wake of his gaze. When their eyes met, Shiro’s were wide, longing, and Keith’s breath stuck in his throat. No one had ever looked at him that way before. Like he was...a work of art, something priceless to be treasured. A small laugh, more like a sigh, escaped Shiro. “I’m afraid to touch you. I’m afraid I’ll wake up and it won’t be real again.”

Keith pulled Shiro close, his head coming to rest on his shoulder.

“I’m here. I’m here, Shiro. And please, please, _please_ touch me.”

He couldn’t hear Shiro’s chuckle but he could feel the breath of it ghosting over his shoulder. Shiro’s hands travelled up his legs to settle at his waist and Keith could feel they weren’t too far from meeting around his middle. Any blood that had stayed in his head to keep him alive, headed south, priorities rearranged. Slipping lower, Shiro’s hands pushed past the waist of his jeans, grabbing handfuls of his ass. Grinding him against his crotch, Keith felt desperation seep into the heat, clawing at his insides, urging him on.

“Yes,” he hissed, the drugged feeling of being weightless, held and vulnerable numbing thoughts in his brain and sizzling in his blood.

Lifted and dragged close again and again, need was coiling in his stomach, ready to strike. Garbled noises and pleas started falling from his lips and Shiro watched him in wonder, panting.

“Baby, are...are you close?”

If Keith had had any blood left in his head to blush with he would have. As it stood, his reptilian brain had taken over and it left no room for embarrassment. Nodding, he bit his lip around a keening noise in the back of his throat.

“I...I can’t...help it, you...I’ve...wanted, so long...Need…”

A growl tore from Shiro and he easily lifted Keith, shifting him so he was straddling one of his toned thighs. Dragging him forward, the frictions singed through Keith’s addled brain and he almost sobbed. First in relief, then in desperation. Rocking his hips faster, his hands on Shiro’s shoulders for balance, he watched the other man’s eyes widen and blink. He was staring at him like he couldn’t believe his eyes, a miracle somehow being performed in front of him. One of his hands came to curl around Keith’s neck, angling his head so Keith couldn’t look away.

“That’s it, baby, come on, show me. Show me. I know you can do it, I’ve got you.”

His hair was plastered to his neck in damp strands and his breaths were coming so fast he wondered if he’d pass out before he finished but nothing could have made him stop in that moment. His eyes bored into Shiro’s, afraid to miss a second of the way he was looking at him. With wide eyed wonder and awe, like Keith was something precious. Taking in the look in his eyes, the full lips Keith had left stung, the jawline he had wanted to reach out and touch so many times over the years, the hair falling into his eyes, he felt each facet build, a kaleidoscope of Shiro in his mind. Wherever he looked, another crystal clear, trembling image of him danced in his mind. His hands, the large, warm hands wrapped around his waist. The muscles in his arms, coiled and tense from physically lifting Keith. His scent, the after shave that drove him to distraction. Each reflection, present and memorised danced in his mind and he watched it like a film reel behind his lids when his eyes fell closed. Chasing the precipice, racing toward the top, he jerked himself harder against Shiro’s leg, the pressure so tantalisingly close to releasing. The friction of his jeans and the other man’s leg was clumsy and undirected and he wanted to scream with frustration. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to stop, to take his hands from Shiro’s shoulders to finish himself. It felt...fitting that he brought himself over this way, worshiping every feature of the man he’d loved so long.

“That’s it, baby, I can see you want to, show me now, come for me.”

Keith’s breaths were now so rushed he could feel spots dance at the edge of his vision. The need was clawing deep gauges inside him, the fire never relenting for a moment. Shiro pulled him even harder against him and the drag from his thigh, the hard jut of hip rocketed through Keith’s body. His head jerked back and Shiro leaned forward to press a kiss to Keith’s neck, sucking hard, no doubt hard enough to leave a mark. That did Keith in. He’d wear a mark from Shiro on his skin.

With a shout, his hips stuttered, back arching as the desire hurtled him through vast space, floating and falling at the same time. Light burst behind his eyes and blinded him. Dark, empty nothingness filled his brain, left him lazily numb. Slowly, his senses started returning, his hearing first.

“...eith? Keith?”

The voice seemed to come from far away, echoing slightly. Shiro’s voice. Keith smiled to himself. He had such a nice voice. He liked the way his name sounded in that voice.

“Hmm?” was all the response his brain cells could produce.

“Are you okay?”

Blinking, his sight returned to him. Straightening slightly, Keith found he was still sitting on Shiro’s lap, his arms wound around him and his head resting in the crook of his neck. He’d been right, it smelled really good there.

“Okay?” He shifted, lifted his head. “I don’t think okay is the word for it. That was...I don’t know,” he shook his head. Swallowed back the embarrassing barrage of words to attempt to describe what it had been. It had been the best orgasm of his life. That didn’t really soften the blow of how uncool it probably had been. Rutting against Shiro like he was in heat, coming untouched in his jeans like some fifteen-year-old school kid. As if Shiro didn’t already have the biggest hold over him, he now knew Keith could and would get off just from looking at him. So much for the tough image, you headcase, he berated himself. He cleared his throat, tried again.

“Really good.”

“Your eyes rolled back in your head. It didn’t seem like you could hear me.” Shiro frowned.

Keith fidgeted. “I was kinda busy having the best orgasm of my life.”

Shiro brightened. “Really?” A look like he’d won first prize in the spelling bee crossed his face. “The best ever?”

“Hrm...yeah. I…” Keith looked away, his eyes landing on the vintage poster of the Power Rangers on the wall. “I’m sorry if that was...If…”

“Keith.” His voice was so soft. And his thumb was rubbing along his jaw. Forcing himself to meet Shiro’s eyes and see the tamped back amusement at Keith’s teenage level desperation, he only saw warmth and wonder. “I changed my mind. _That’s_ the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m s...What?” He tried to get his fogged brain to cooperate. “Really?”

“Really.” He looked down, a blush tinging his cheeks. “No one’s ever wanted me that way before.”

Keith didn’t have to think about his reply. “I’m sure plenty have.”

“No.” Shiro looked up again. “No one who knows me. Really knows me.”

The vulnerable look in his eyes, the awe, the hint of...gratitude, it did him in. How could one man possibly have this power over him? How was he meant to fit everything he felt for him inside just one body? Keith groaned and leaned his head against Shiro’s shoulder. “God, Shiro, am I sick? How can I want you this badly?”

He couldn’t see his smile but he heard it in his voice, enjoying the sensation of Shiro’s lips against his hair.

“If you’re sick, then I’m sick too.”

He sat up again. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Shiro leaned back, resting his weight on his hands behind him. “What I said. It was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Keith’s eyes fell to where Shiro’s slacks hung undone on his hips. There was a wet spot darkening the fabric of his boxers and a rolling, shaking revelation ran through Keith. Watching him had done it for Shiro. Just as it had done it for him. Suddenly, coming in his jeans didn’t seem so bad, and a laugh bubbled up in his throat.

“I really love you.”

Shiro sat up again to get close.

“I really love you too.”

Keith leaned his forehead against Shiro. “Now will you please fuck me before I get too turned on by sitting on your lap looking at you again?”

Shiro’s laugh was a summer wind, warm and breezy.

“I would love to.”

After some shifting, a quick hunt for lube, and a conversation about last results and recentness of STD testing that left the packet of condoms in his nighstand, Keith rested against the matress. The thought of getting to feel Shiro bare had him trembling already. Finally rid of all their clothes, Shiro was hovering above him, the heat of his body completely enveloping Keith. Slower to harden this time, they kissed languidly, slow and deep, tongues exploring. It seemed Shiro was trying to catalogue every inch of his skin, his hands running over him. Sighs and hums warmed the air. The need that had temporarily been sated started swirling through Keith’s blood. The feel of Shiro’s skin, the scent of him, seeing his hands move across his skin, it all wound him tighter, pushed him higher. Fully hard again, his hips started rolling of their own, searching for friction against Shiro’s soft skin. Kissing the mark he’d left earlier on Keith’s neck, Shiro let his tongue trail over his collarbone.

“Shiro, please…”

With a devious smile, Shiro looked up from his position over Keith’s chest. “Yes, baby?”

His hair was tangled, his lips were swollen and his eyes were deep and dark and wanting. He looked so fucking good.

“Did you want something?”

“Shiro, please fuck me! I’m going to go crazy if you don’t hurry up.”

Smiling, Shiro slid higher and Keith keened in disappointment. Then he realised it was to reach the lube he’d moved and eagerly he lifted his legs, let his knees fall apart. Shiro’s breath hitched a little, then his voice was in Keith’s ear, so close he could feel the heat of his breaths.

“So eager for me, baby. You want me to help you? Fill you up good and fuck you until you come, screaming on my cock?”

Who would have thought Shiro, who barely swore as he maintained it was the sign of a poor vocabulary, capable of voicing filth that had Keith wriggling on the bed, his cock twitching? His arms wound around Shiro’s shoulders, his hips rolling sinuously.

“Yes, please...Shiro, _please_ , just...I need...Need…”

His words failed him, the overwhelming want swallowing him under. His head was a mess, his body was on fire and he felt like he had waited a lifetime already.

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Keith.”

Then he blessedly slid lower, kneeling between Keith’s spread legs.

“How do you...How do you want to…?”

Keith realised what Shiro was asking.

“I want to see you.”

With a smile, Shiro nodded.

“Ready?”

“Shiro…”

“Sorry, just making sure,” he chuckled, love and joy both alive in his eyes.

Then his left hand circled the base of Keith’s cock, just as he slipped a finger inside to the first knuckle. Keyed up and sensitive, he couldn’t help bucking off the bed, his back arching. It felt so good. Did the man have magic fingers as well? Gently, Shiro nudged deeper, sinking in to the second knuckle and starting to pump it slowly. Keith keened, rocking into Shiro’s hold. The slight stretch teased his nerve endings, the hollow slipperiness widening inside him. He wanted more. Needed more.  
By the time Shiro had two fingers buried in him, Keith was a panting mess. His hair was stuck to his sweaty forehead, beads of it were forming on his chest and his lips were rosy from how he’d bitten them. His voice was hoarse and ragged and he’d crumpled the sheets in his fists.

“Please, Shiro...More...I need more.”

Shiro’s breath stuttered, his gaze travelling between where his fingers were buried deep in him, up to his face. His shoulders were trembling, his impressive cock so hard itwas flush against his stomach.

“You look so good, Keith. You look so good like this. I’ve never...I…” He shook the bangs out of his eyes. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”  
Keith whined, his hips rolling against Shiro’s hand.

“Shiro, please!”

Keith felt the gentle burn, then the stretch as his insides tried to accommodate another finger. Slowing his thrusts again to give him time to adjust, Shiro leaned down. Watching in wide eyed, frozen fascination, Keith saw Shiro take him in. His cock disappearing between those beautiful lips, the insane heat suddenly enveloping him...his eyes wanted to roll back in his head. But then he’d miss some of this image, and that would break his heart. A shout tore from him, his hips surging forward without his control. Shiro didn’t pull back, just slowly bobbed his head, the smooth slide of his throat bringing tears to Keith’s eyes. It couldn’t be possible to feel this good.

The three fingers in his ass picked up again, the addition of Shiro’s mouth having loosened him so they easily fit. Fingering him harder, Keith thrashed on the bed, garbled noises falling from his lips.

“Now, Shiro, please, now…” Chanting it like a prayer, Shiro looked up.

“I think you need a little more, I don’t want to hurt you.”

Wild eyed and panting, Keith surged up.

“ _Now_ , Shiro. I’ll die if you don’t.”

The physical impossibility of this was lost on both of them and with a moan, Shiro slid up to claim his lips again. His fingers slipped from Keith and the terrible emptiness threatened to swallow him. Then he felt the press of Shiro against him and whining with the need to feel it, Keith spread his legs wider. Sensing his wish, the other man wrapped his arms around Keith’s knees and helped him hold them up. Spread wide and held open and wanting in place did things to him. He felt small and helpless and at the same time safe. Vulnerable from the position, but powerful under Shiro’s awestruck gaze. Then the head of Shiro’s cock breached him and everything he’d been thinking disappeared, everything he’d been feeling getting sucked into vacuum and pinpointed into one, sole focus. The intimate slide of skin on skin, the hint of burn and the glorious, delicious stretch were both new and familiar sensations. But cracking his eyes open to see Shiro, his wide shoulders trembling with the control to not just slam into Keith, his eyes searching Keith’s face, that was better. The knowledge that it was Shiro, that he was finally here, the he wanted him, it was all new and all powerful. Nodding in response to the unspoken question, Shiro exhaled quietly and slid in a few inches more. God, he was so big. Keith wanted to shout, to claw, to thrash to get all of it but he knew he couldn’t. Wouldn’t be able to take it unless they went slow. And he wanted to take it like he wanted to breathe. Not by conscious choice atthis point but by deep-rooted instinct.

Shiro was trembling by the time he bottomed out and Keith’s breaths were rushing in and out of him. He’d never felt anything like it. It filled him up completely, left no room to think. The sensation filled his body but it took over his mind just as completely.

Shiro let go of his legs and Keith quickly wrapped them around his waist instead. Then the older man leaned forward over him, resting his impressive weight on his arms above him. Tenderly, he put his lips to Keith’s at the same time as he thrust gently for the first time. Keith’s mind short circuited. Fizzling, sparking electricity burst behind his eyelids and he moaned into the kiss. Shiro swallowed the sound hungrily. Past the point of caring for any pain, Keith used his hold on Shiro to shove himself closer, take him deeper. A groan in return was Keith’s to keep. Signalled that he was free to move, Shiro set a slow, hard pace and Keith wanted to both laugh and cry. It felt so good. He’d never been touched in some of the places Shiro reached and every thrust dragged him over his prostate with mindbending certainty.

Shiro broke the kiss to hover over him, his breaths fluttering over Keith’s face. “How do you want it, baby? Tell me what you want.”

Keith was no English professor but he’d known a lot of words before entering this room today. He’d even been able to string some of them into sentences that made sense to other people. Now, all he could do was helplessly open his mouth, disjointed words hoarsely pulled from his throat.

“...Faster. H...Harder. Please!”

A breath rushed out of Shiro, blowing Keith’s bangs from his face.

“God, baby, you beg so pretty.”

The dark, shadowy need for the words, for the name, purred in his stomach. He could spend some other time thinking about what that meant about him, right now all he wanted to do was have Shiro shower him with filthy praise.

“M...more…”

Despite Keith’s plea being one word and his voice strained, Shiro seemed to understand.

“You look incredible, taking me. You look like you were meant for it. Taking my cock, your lips made to beg so prettily for it.”

Something that was both a sob and a sigh of relief escaped Keith and he felt his body relax and open, like a flower opening to the sun. Suddenly Shiro could move easier, Keith’s body no longer bearing down on him so hard. Able to move, he quickly shifted, getting to his knees so he could have better leverage and then he started pounding into Keith. Mewling, Keith could only hold on for the ride, the sensations so great he couldn’t surface. Twisting one hand into his hair, pulling in the hope the pain could ground him, he wound his legs tighter against Shiro.

“That’s it, baby, you’re so good for me, you feel so tight. I wish you could see how you look.”

Again and again Shiro thrust into him, splitting him open and taking him apart. Every time he pulled out, Keith’s insides surged in to banish the hollowness, then he was pried open again, each drag of Shiro’s cock a caress to his deepest, most intimate places. He was coming apart at the seams. Someone was crying out and Keith realised it was him. His voice was crying out, curses, pleas and Shiro’s name, all spilling from his lips incoherently. The intensity had tears burning at the corners of his eyes and white hot light was edging his vision. He’d never come from just being taken before, had always needed a hand or a mouth on him to help him over. But now tidal wave was already cresting, rushing toward him. The noises he made would have embarrassed a seasoned professional but Keith was too far gone to notice. All he wanted was for Shiro not to stop. Not when he was hitting...everywhere inside of him at once, when his skin slid hotly against Keith’s, when his eyes burnt into his.

“ _Yes, yes, yes_ , just...Shiro, Shiro, please!”

“Are you close, baby? Will you come for me?”

Shiro’s voice was strained now, hoarse and hot.

“Show me, baby, come for me.”

And just like that, as if it were within Shiro’s command to ask him to, Keith was coming. The tidal wave washed over him, the weight and pressure of it forcing the air from his lungs. Pulled him under with elemental force, the world disappearing in the roaring current. His hands scrabbled over Shiro’s back, his hips rocking helplessly against him. A broken cry escaped him, his back arching impossibly off the bed. Above him, Shiro’s throat clicked uselessly when he tried to swallow, the sight of Keith’s rapture pushing him to follow. Liquid heat pooled inside him and Keith’s body pulsed with it.

The world around him was dark, and warm, rocking him gently back and forth. Somewhere deep under the numbing satisfaction, he knew he’d just bested the previously best orgasm of his life. Whichever order they were felt unimportant and trivial compared to this feeling. Lulled and safe, he wants to curl up in this space and never leave.

“Keith? Keith, are you okay?”

He surfaced again, colours and lights returning. Shiro is hovering above him. It’s strange, the room looked just the same as it had that morning, and yet now everything felt completely different.

He found his voice, had to strain to make it heard. It’s rough from overuse. “Yeah.” He cleared it. “You?”

“I…” Shiro pushed himself a little higher, some of the heat clearing from his gaze. “I’m pretty sure I’ve never felt better.”

Keith laughed a little at Shiro’s expression. He’s never laughed in bed before. It fet good.

Slowly, Shiro pulled away, leaving Keith empty. Before he could stop himself, Keith reached down between their bodies, feeling for where they were just joined. He’s loose and soft and wet. Exploring the sensation, he ran a finger over the rim, to dip inside. The feather soft touch felt intense, oversensitivity magnifying the movement.

Above him, Sihro still hovered, his eyes wide.

“What...what are you doing?”

Still with his finger inside himself, Keith looked up to meet Shiro’s eyes. “I wanted to feel what you did to me.” He couldn't help that it came out a purr.

Shiro’s head falls to Keith’s shoulder.

“Jesus Christ.”He breathes deep. “Are you trying to kill me? Cause I think you might succeed.”

Pleased, Keith hums. “No, I don’t want to kill you.” He slipped his hand away, settling both on Shiro’s hips. His thumbs hovered over the jut of his hipbones and the insanely hot dip below them. “I want…” he leaned up to whisper in Shiro’s ear, “Pizza.”

Shiro laughed, a deep rolling sound that makes Keith’s heart flop in his chest like a fish on land.

“One sec.”

He fumbled below the bed until he found his phone, then he rolled them over, easily pulling Keith with him so he is draped over his chest. With a few flicks of his thumb, he had the pizza ordered.

Keith, close to entering a catatonic state from the sheer joy of lying on top of the ode to perfection that’s Shiro’s naked body, inhaling the smell of him just at the crook of his neck, tried to form some words.

“No mushrooms, right?”

“Who do you take me for? I ordered your favourite.”

Keith blinked where he laid. He had just had world altering, mind blowing, almost made him pass out good sex, with Shiro, who loved him. And he was getting his favourite pizza? No one had ever been luckier than him in the entire history of the universe.

“I love you.”

It was the only appropriate response to “I ordered your favorite pizza” after all.

“I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty pleased I got the dorks together in the end!! Thank you to everyone who read but especially to those who left kudos and virtual cookies to everyone who commented, it always cheers me up to hear if you like something!

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it :) :)


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